The lives of most flying birds are fast-paced and make tremendous physical demands upon them.
A robust framework is essential, but the bird skeleton also needs flexibility and to be light enough for flight.
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Birds are all that remain today of the dinosaurs.
The history of their emergence from the mighty theropod dinosaur lineage is told through millennia of fossils, and evidence of this ancestry is apparent in their living bodies today.
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Waterbirds approaching (or departing from) their liquid runways offer much more rewarding viewing than does any airport.
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The almost-set sun obligingly accentuated our hero’s breast feathers, as s/he and I looked directly at each other.
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Q: Are bills and beaks different, and if so, how are they different?
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According to numerous sources, no other living bird has a bigger bill than the Australian Pelican’s.
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If you did not already know what this chick looks like, you would likely find it difficult to guess what is its particular (common) species.
If a magician were to combine and animate a mangled wire bush, an old and charred small Banksia spike, a dash of cotton wool and an overripe cherry tomato, the result would likely resemble this post’s critter.
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Not every predatory stalker relies on cover and/or camouflage.
Today’s very elegant hunter is easily seen, even by inattentive humans.
A Great Egret relies on stillness and focus…and the very sudden deployment of his/her neck, head and beak.
An egret’s “lethal end” is analogous to a speargun.
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Our hero lost his “sacred” status when his Australian-ness was recognised!
As is true of many birds, Threskiornis molucca – the Australian white ibis – is wonderfully elegant when high in the sky, but rather less so when on terra firma, or in the process of becoming airborne.
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Four kilometres south of the little town of Augusta is Cape Leeuwin, atop which sits the Australian mainland’s tallest lighthouse.
The much-promoted notion that this is where two oceans meet is highly debatable; arguably, the Indian Ocean laps both sides of Cape Leeuwin.
Regardless, it is our continent’s bottom left hand “corner”, and the Augusta/Leeuwin “corner” is a wonderful place.
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